Have you noticed something different about your Facebook newsfeed lately? Have you wondered if it has a new algorithm?

As in, a new algorithm that features your friends’ frantic posts about a new algorithm that throttles Newsfeed posts down to only those from 26 Facebook-selected friends?

Guess what, friends…. Facebook’s algorithm now chooses your 26 FB friends. If you can read this, please leave me a “hi,” whatever, so you will appear in my news feed.

Feel free to copy and paste on your wall, too, if you want to see more than FB’s algorithmic selection. FB shouldn’t choosing my friends.

Don’t worry. There’s no new algorithm, at least not that we know of. Your friends have just been taken in by the latest Facebook hoax. Don’t give in to their pleas to just post a quick “hi, whatever” – anything, really, just because they MISS YOU! and don’t want Facebook to choose which friends they see.

Snopes had skin in the game with this one: As the hoax slayers described on Monday, one version of the rumor added another layer of flame-broiled bogus onto the whopper – that a friend had checked Snopes and found that “yes it’s TRUE,” (no, it’s NOT), that Newsfeed was showing only posts from the “same few people, around 25, repeatedly the same, because Facebook has a new algorithm.”

It wasn’t about squeezing out your friends, though. In fact, Facebook had the opposite in mind: it said it was working on turning the tables when it comes to personal content from friends and family being squeezed out by an explosion of corporate posts, be they from corporations, businesses or media.

Snopes contacted Facebook to ask whether the claim of limiting personal interactions had merit. A representative said no, it does not. In fact, the rumor, which has gone viral by lying its way to the top of newsfeeds, has done so by tricking users into liking and sharing it, not because it has even a vague aroma of truth about it.

Don’t like the hoax posts. Don’t share them. Don’t add any comments to these posts, either: that will just increase their ranking. Rather, send a private message to those who’ve fallen for the hoax, gently talking friends and family out of sharing or participating in any way.

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About the author

Lisa has been writing about technology, careers, science and health since 1995. She rose to the lofty heights of Executive Editor for eWEEK, popped out with the 2008 crash and joined the freelancer economy. Alongside Naked Security Lisa has written for CIO Mag, ComputerWorld, PC Mag, IT Expert Voice, Software Quality Connection, Time, and the US and British editions of HP's Input/Output.

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